Orientation

What Is the LinkerBot O6?

The LinkerBot O6 is a 6-degree-of-freedom collaborative robot arm designed for tabletop manipulation research and imitation learning. It communicates over a CAN bus interface — the same SocketCAN stack used by the OpenArm 101 — making it straightforward to integrate with ROS2 and LeRobot data pipelines.

How CAN Bus Works (the short version)

CAN (Controller Area Network) is a serial bus protocol that the O6 uses to send joint commands and receive joint feedback at high frequency. Your computer connects to the arm via a USB-to-CAN adapter. Linux exposes it as a network interface called can0. You configure it once per boot (or via udev rules) and then any program can open a socket on it.

If you have completed the OpenArm 101 path, the CAN setup is identical. If not, Unit 1 covers the full setup from scratch.

What You'll Build in This Path

1. A working CAN bus connection and verified joint state readout.
2. A ROS2 control interface driving all 6 joints.
3. A live teleoperation session using either keyboard, SpaceMouse, or leader-follower hardware.
4. A LeRobot dataset with 50+ high-quality demonstration episodes.
5. A trained ACT or Diffusion Policy checkpoint achieving ≥70% success on your task.

Prerequisites Checklist

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS installed and updated (sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade)
• ROS2 Humble installed and sourced (ros2 --version returns humble)
• Python 3.10+ with pip available
• Basic Linux command line familiarity (cd, ls, sudo, apt)
• Basic Python familiarity (import, functions, loops)
• ~10 hours available across the path

Hardware Checklist

• LinkerBot O6 arm unit
• Power supply (supplied with arm)
• USB-to-CAN adapter (PEAK PCAN-USB or compatible)
• Mounting plate or bench clamp — arm must be secured before powering on
• USB webcam or RealSense (for data collection in Units 4–5)

Safety Basics

The O6 is a collaborative arm rated for safe human proximity, but standard precautions still apply:

• Always mount the arm before powering on. An unmounted arm will tip or swing when joints move.
• Keep hands clear of the workspace when running scripts for the first time.
• The arm does not have an integrated e-stop button. Close your terminal or press Ctrl+C to halt a running script. Consider this your software e-stop.
• Start with slow joint velocities (below 30% of maximum) until you understand the arm's motion range.

Path Time Breakdown